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I am constantly astounded when I visit public forums dedicated to religion/atheist debate.

I find the godbot mentality that humans have to obey all kinds of behaviour conduct rules to get into heaven, but breaking the rules does not result in punishment if you repent – no matter how many times you break the rules and repent again.

I realize that once a person has committed themselves to believing in any religion’s creation myths and stories to be true against all evidence and nature, that it’s a lot easier to believe other untrue things – so long as the untrue thing supports what you already believe so it can then be deemed evidence – again, against all real evidence.

Which is a round about way of saying that no matter how much godbots would like Stalin, Mao, Hitler and other dictators who slaughtered millions of people because they belonged to particular minority groups to have been atheists or since they did not commit their atrocities specifically in the name of religion that the slaughter had atheist overtones….

this is just not true.

None of them were atheists in the sense that they held beliefs for which there is no evidence and to the atheist, thus no reason to believe.

The usual gang of dictators committed their genocides because of their political agenda and and their own desire for power. Religion and Political ideology are strong motivators to eliminate the groups of people who are deemed undesirable by whichever dogma the dictator is dedicated to; as well as any groups with enough support or influence who could topple the up and coming dictators.

So, that Stalin set about destroying the influence of the churches and basically making religion a crime – does not make Stalin an atheist – it just means he was obsessed with power and was willing to slaughter to gain and maintain it.

So, if atheists were the majority of the population – how likely is it that an atheist government and population would slaughter segments of the population?

Godbots would have you believe that an atheist society would be as violent – if not more – than humans have been in the past and how we are at present.

I disagree – and not because I am an atheist.

Oh – one last digression: Eugenics.

This is the idea that we should eliminate bad mutations to improve the human, well, breeding stock.

In and of itself, it’s not unreasonable.

However, how it has been defined and carried out in practice is horribly wrong.

The Eugenics programs carried out in Western Democratic countries like Canada and the US were not motivated, informed or driven by “science”.

Eugenics programs were driven by social attitudes of racism and discrimination against disabled – especially anyone deemed mentally disabled or as having a low IQ.

Aside to the digression: Back in the early half of the 1900’s, IQ tests were highly culturally biased so that the white northerners who designed the tests scored the highest, with northern Black and southern whites coming in around the same scores and leaving southern Blacks the lowest test scoring. See how that works?

Today, what we call Designer Babies is actually eugenics – only we’re working from the designing the next generation instead of preventing members of existing generations from breeding.

Okay – so what would an atheist society look like? Utopia? Not likely, we’re all still human with faults and who can make mistakes.

But, consider that atheists:

are under represented in prisons and crime stats;

tend to have higher levels of education and therefore more economic opportunity – so less motive to commit violent crimes would reduce them, but they will never be eliminated entirely and economic crimes would still occur likely to the same degree as present;

do not accept claims that there’s an afterlife – atheists tend to view life as being very precious since it’s the only one we know that we and everyone else has;

do not suicide bomb while screaming “for no particular reason”;

do not shoot religious leaders because we object to what the religious people promote;

do not vote against civil rights advancements;

have never called for a round up and extermination of religious believers;

haven’t demanded an end to the existence of religious schools – only an end to taxpayers funding them; and

since we’re all rather individualists aren’t driven to violence because others make different choices for their lives than we have made.

So how exactly does an atheist – even one elected to office since an atheist society would never be a dictatorship – go from that to mass support for the extermination of entire groups of people?

Like other questions, godbots never have an answer to the questions that they pose.

When pushed to answer, the godbot disappears from the forum and return under a new sock puppet name but spouting the same nonsense as before – as if atheists aren’t able to see the same statements, grammar, spelling and attacks as the last 4 sock puppet incarnations.

Funny that religions all promote and worship the hierarchy of authority – specifically their own authority.

But, if they actually obeyed “authority,” there not only wouldn’t be so many religions; but, more importantly, so many different versions of the same religion.

Looking just at Christianity, the Catholic Church is the oldest still active version of xtianity.

So all the other versions, no matter how fundamental – have broken the most important rule – in letter and spirit (holy or otherwise) – to obey all levels of Authority by breaking away and forming their own new subgroup that doesn’t recognize the original authority they previously worshiped.

Once you break that rule, why cling so hard to the intolerance that fundie religions promote and demand worship of the authority of the new break away sect?

More than that, how can you break away from Authority, and the create your own authority structure that you insist is the “true” one that must be obeyed unquestioningly.

If you read or watch, it’s pornography – but when I read or watch the same thing it’s erotica.

This seems to be the attitude of a lot of folks who are bizarrely concerned about what kind and with whom other people are having sex.

I think that, unless you’re invited and as long as it’s consenting adults, that it’s no one business what other people do, with what and to whom.

I find it very funny how the religious righteous are constantly crying about gays and lesbians “ramming” sex down the public’s throats – when it’s actually the religious righteous who are obsessed with all the gay sex that they are allegedly not having themselves.

Because for people who are supposedly not having gay sex, kinky sex, anal sex, threesomes, foursomes and moresomes – they sure spend a lot of time thinking about it.

Way more time than people who freely admit to being gay or kinky think about gay or kinky sex.

And, if the religious righteous doesn’t want non-straight non-missionary sex in the public sphere, why do they keep bringing it up?

Unless there’s non-consent, force or children or animals involved – it is not in society’s interest to regulate or monitor sex. It’s costly, time consuming and not at all enforceable. It makes law and law makers foolish.

The only reason I can see to be interested in what other people are doing sexually, is if you’re looking for improvement tips or suggestions.

Just because there’s things that I am not interested in trying doesn’t make them disgusting to the point where I should demand that activity, prop, costume or position be banned and the enjoyers of it shunned.

I can only think that the reason the religious righteous are so wanting to control other people’s sex is that they are doing something worse themselves.

It’s not a surprise to me that the public forums where people debate religion quickly turn into name calling and insults.

It is difficult to have an actual conversation or debate when the basic terminology isn’t being used to mean the same things.

There seems to be a common misconception – mostly with theists – that there are three positions in the debate:

Theist – Believer in the one true religion (luckily, that happens to be the one they were born to)

Agnostic – someone who just isn’t sure, but may or may not identify with a religion

Atheists – people who are immoral god haters.

These three terms do not reflect the spectrum of belief to non-belief nor are the meanings correct.

Theism and Gnosticism are different things entirely and adding the “a” prefix, reverses the meaning of the word.

We have not three positions of belief – sort of like how people also erroneously think there’s three sexual places on that spectrum of straight, bisexual and gay – but really there’s two positions faith and knowledge with the setting to on or off.

Theism is the belief that there’s deities. Atheism is no belief in deities.

Aside: “no belief in deities” is not the same as “belief in no deities”

Gnostic is not about what the beleif is, but rather it’s a position on the nature of knowledge itself – so the gnostic knows and the agnostic isn’t sure we can know.

Which puts theism and gnosticism sort of like genes – you can have the gene, but whether it’s turned off or on is a separate matter.

Atheists could be called agnostic atheists, but in the modern sense of the word, the idea of knowledge is blurring into atheism.

I think that it’s partly because atheists tend to be comfortable with not having an answer to questions. We don’t know yet with the current state of technology and understanding. We’d rather leave the answer a question mark than insert “goddidit” as a place holder.

Since “goddidit” provides no meaningful answer at all.

We might find out in our lifetime or we won’t. Either way, we’re going on with the one life that we know we have, being the best person we can be.

What more is there, really?

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